Voices of Fostering

Amalia - We specialise in parent and child foster care

• National Fostering Group • Season 3 • Episode 4

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In this episode of our Voices of Fostering podcast, we are joined by Amalia, one of our amazing foster carers. She has been fostering for 10 years alongside her husband. Amalia shares her unique journey, from working in high-end casinos and running a pub to becoming a foster carer after seeing a simple advert. She reflects on the joys and challenges of fostering, the emotional ups and downs, and what she has learned along the way.

If you would like to find out more about fostering please visit our website here.

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00:00:00 Helen 

Well, welcome along to this episode of of Voices of Fostering. We're today. I'm delighted to be joined by Amalia, who's one of our foster carers. Hello, Amalia. Hi. Welcome along. Thank you so much for for speaking to us today. So you've been a foster carer for 10 years, is that right? 

00:00:19 Amalia 

Yes. 

00:00:20 Amalia 

With my husband. 

00:00:20 Amalia 

Then as well, yeah, we've both been fostering for 10 years now. This is coming to 10 years now. 

00:00:26 Helen 

Take us right back to the beginning, Amalia, because you had a very different career, didn't you? Before you started foster caring. So tell us about that. 

00:00:35 Amalia 

Yes. Well, our our main career for both of us because that's how we met originally is we were in casinos in central London, which tend to be quite sort of High Roller type casinos I I started working in 88, he was already working there. 

00:00:55 Amalia 

And I did that for 20 years, which is a long time. 

00:00:59 Amalia 

And I left when my children, sort of. I felt that they I needed to be home with them, so I stopped working in 2008 there, but my husband carried on because he was. He was a director, so he had a much more. 

00:01:19 Amalia 

Involved job after that I I got the children into secondary school and then I've decided that I was a bit bored because I don't like not to. 

00:01:29 Amalia 

Things and for a while I went into well, we first of all, we bought the pub and we ran a pub. 

00:01:36 Amalia 

For a couple of years. 

00:01:38 Helen 

Oh wow. 

00:01:38 Amalia 

OK, I did not like that. I I hated that. And then for a while, I work for a few restaurants managing them. So I was a manager. 

00:01:41 Helen 

It wasn't for you. 

00:01:50 Amalia 

With Pizza Express and with a company called EBS Burgers. 

00:01:56 Amalia 

And I was working for Jamie Oliver's restaurant when my husband said Ohh, I've seen this advert for fostering. I didn't even know what fostering was because I'm Spanish and in Spain we don't have fostering and and I just thought, yeah, that's exactly the sort of thing that. 

00:02:17 Amalia 

Would suit me for many reasons. You know, and I like people. I like having people around. I like children. I like. 

00:02:25 Amalia 

My children were at secondary school as well, so he would have meant I could have been at home with them. So we decided to just look into it just to see where it was. And yeah, that's how it all sort of started. That's it, my husband. 

00:02:43 Amalia 

You working and. 

00:02:44 Helen 

So it was literally an advertisement, Amelia. So that's amazing, isn't it? Cause you think somebody could be watching this right now? Maybe it's just popped up on their social media or something. And the same thing could happen for them. You know, it could spark that idea in in their head. So how, what did that lead on to then? Like, why? 

00:02:44 

It's. 

00:03:04 Helen 

Why did you think you'd be good at it? 

00:03:07 Amalia 

Because I think the way he was said he was his, he was something along the lines of, you know, do you. 

00:03:12 Amalia 

Do you have? 

00:03:14 Amalia 

Room in your life? Yeah. To take care of a child. And at the time, I thought that sounded perfect. We had the room. My children were not so young anymore. So, you know, and at the time, I just, I don't know. I just. I just thought, yeah, that sounds like something that I could do. And and I could. 

00:03:34 Amalia 

Alongside having my own family, you know they could just be part of a bigger family. Yeah. To be honest, I wasn't too sure what it involved. I didn't realise it was. I honestly thought it was, which I'm sure a lot of people get this. I thought it was to just get another child and he comes in and he lives with you and he's just like having three children instead of two. 

00:03:54 Helen 

Yeah. 

00:03:55 Amalia 

That's exactly what I thought he was gonna. 

00:03:56 Amalia 

Be like which is. 

00:03:57 Amalia 

Not just that, there are lots of other things, but. 

00:04:03 Amalia 

I just said no. I thought it would fit us as a family and and it did, actually. 

00:04:07 Helen 

So going back to 10 years ago then, if you can remember, can you remember what the the assessment process was like, what the training was like? Can you remember that that whole process? 

00:04:17 Amalia 

Yeah, I I do vividly. The the assessment was long and it was very, very in depth. 

00:04:26 Amalia 

He was a very in-depth assessment. We had a a social worker. She was a lovely, lovely lady. She came to us and it was almost like psychotherapy at times because you were talking about things you hadn't thought about for years, how you felt about this, and how do you think that and it was actually? 

00:04:37 Helen 

Yeah. 

00:04:47 Amalia 

Lovely. I mean, I really enjoyed it, but it went on for a good four or five months, yeah. 

00:04:54 Helen 

And so many people say that Amelia, that they learn so much about themselves in that process. Yeah. 

00:05:01 Amalia 

It it definitely made you think about things because obviously the people doing this are very good and they they they ask questions that make you think and and talk about things that you didn't even know you you knew or you they were in your head. So no it was great and then obviously. 

00:05:22 Amalia 

Once we passed that, we had to do the the big book. Can't remember what it's called now. TDs something like the the training to which I don't. I'm not sure they do anymore, but that was really good as well because you were learning about things. 

00:05:40 Amalia 

Which were very relevant to your own life, to your own children as well, you know. So, but I mean, you have to forgive me. I'm a bit of. 

00:05:48 Amalia 

A. 

00:05:48 Amalia 

Training. But me, I love training, I love courses and learning. 

00:05:52 Helen 

Yeah, and there's lots of it to do, isn't there? There's lots of things to learn. 

00:05:56 Helen 

And. 

00:05:57 Amalia 

A lot. 

00:05:57 Helen 

And you've done. We'll get onto this in a few minutes, but you've ended up doing some quite specialised fosters. 

00:06:03 Helen 

Haven't you? But if you we go back to that, that first placement that you had that first child or young person that you had lived with you can you, can you tell us about that? What was it like? 

00:06:12 Amalia 

The first person I had as a sort of thing was a bit of a strange situation. He was an asylum seeker, young boy, and there were a lot of complications and issues with him, like a lot of things that were not, but that in itself was very interesting because I had to help in through. 

00:06:33 Amalia 

The whole sort of legal side of asylum seeker cause the things he was saying did not really correspond with the things we were witnessing, and I had to take him for a lot of meetings and I had taken to Croydon to Lunar house to do all the paperwork and that in itself was. 

00:06:53 Amalia 

You know, like out of your comfort zone, but very, very educational if you want, you know, you get to know a lot of things that you didn't know before. It wasn't a very long placement because it was decided by. 

00:07:06 Amalia 

The whole team that he would be better off plays with the with the religious sensitive placements where somewhere where they go because he was a a Muslim and he would feel better in a Muslim household. So he was only with me for three months of maybe a bit more than that. 

00:07:27 Amalia 

By the time they found anyway, but the one I considered to be my first placement, the one that broke my heart a little bit was my first long term placement, which was a boy. He came to us for respite and we read. 

00:07:32 

Like. 

00:07:43 Amalia 

We fit really well together and and then his careers decided to stop fostering, which was very sad because he had been led to believe that that was his forever placement, which I think is one of the reasons why now they never say that so much forever placements because things happen and and yeah. 

00:08:02 Amalia 

Not. 

00:08:03 Amalia 

These children have suffered so much already. They've had so much rejection and and horrible thing. 

00:08:08 Amalia 

Things to spend a couple of years telling him this is it gets settled. This is it till you know we'll take you through and then for whatever reason, I'm not criticising the careers. But the point is. Ohh, that's it. Now you're gonna move again. It's not nice. So anyway, he ended up coming to live with us because he he had spent. 

00:08:28 Amalia 

Couple of weeks respite with us and and I really, really thought. 

00:08:34 Amalia 

It's like roasting that that I could be his mum for him and I loved him and I wanted him to be and he. 

00:08:44 Amalia 

Had his own. 

00:08:46 Amalia 

Life. 

00:08:47 Amalia 

To carry and that didn't fit with him staying with us forever. He he had a lot of, like, a lot of the children have a lot of things that they're carrying with them and he. 

00:09:02 Amalia 

He was on like a two year cycle every two years he felt like he had to move. 

00:09:09 Amalia 

And when the two years approached, he he literally sabotage the placement because he just wanted to go and he was nothing against us. He just needed to move on. That was his life journey. And I've seen him since and he's been lovely and he's said, you know, I've really, I'm very sorry. 

00:09:29 Amalia 

I was like that because it's growing up now, but I just had to and that broke my heart a little bit because it was like letting my child, you know, cause the best thing I could do for him was to let him go. 

00:09:42 

Hmm. 

00:09:44 Amalia 

But even that was learning because. 

00:09:46 Amalia 

It it taught me that sometimes the best thing you can do for somebody is let them go. 

00:09:52 Amalia 

Because this, you know, fostering if there's one thing I've learned in 10 years, it's fostering. It's about the children, not about you. 

00:09:52 Helen 

Yeah. 

00:09:59 Amalia 

You know you're there for them and and it has to be what's good for them not. 

00:10:04 Helen 

For you and I think that's what one of the main things I hear that people who are thinking about fostering worry about, you know, how how will I let a child go? 

00:10:19 Helen 

But you do, don't you? You know, cause as you say, it's about the child, not about you. 

00:10:25 Amalia 

Absolutely. And and for him to stay here was creating more problems in his own head because he had issues with with attachment and and and his mum was still in the picture and things and and I think he felt that if he was too attached to somebody that was being disloyal to his own. 

00:10:44 Amalia 

Family. So he by not fully attaching to. 

00:10:49 Amalia 

Somebody else, that's how he dealt with it. It's it was complicated, but that broke my heart a little bit. But it made me stronger cause a lot of these things do make you stronger. And it changed the way I approach. 

00:11:03 Amalia 

Placements after that. 

00:11:06 Amalia 

For the better. 

00:11:08 Amalia 

You know by by still giving and obviously creating and nurturing and loving thing, but not not taking like these people belonging to you because at the end they no children, not even your own children, belong to you. They're not yours. You know, they they're their own people. And you have to see. 

00:11:26 Amalia 

What's good for them? 

00:11:28 Helen 

So. So it sounds like Amelia, you've you've learned so much in this 10 years, haven't you? What would? What would you say the the main sort of things that you've learned so far have been? 

00:11:40 Amalia 

I I've learned that people have to do what they have to do sometimes, and and I've learned that you can, you know, and it's it sounds like a cliche where you can take a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink it at all and some. 

00:11:53 Helen 

Yeah. 

00:11:55 Amalia 

Times. 

00:11:56 Amalia 

You know any good you do is better than nothing. It's it's no good saying. Oh, well, it's not going to change. So it's. I'm not gonna. Do you still do it. Even though when you see that, that what you're doing is not making a huge difference. It is. It may not look like it at the time, but they will come back to you years later and say. 

00:12:15 Amalia 

What I learned when I was with you, what you did for me, changed my life. 

00:12:19 Amalia 

And and that's that's you, you may not get that reward immediately while they're being horrible to you and you know, having that old tension and whatever, but you get it afterwards when they say I learned that I'm I'm I'm what I am now because of what you did. 

00:12:37 Amalia 

And that's amazing. That's that's, you know, and I've had. 

00:12:39 Amalia 

Some. 

00:12:40 Amalia 

Very, very good. I mean, don't get me wrong, not every placement has gone. 

00:12:44 Amalia 

Perfect, because sometimes things happen, but on the whole I would say 95% of my placements have been very positive experiences, very all different. 

00:12:55 Helen 

And now, of course, yeah, all different, because you've gone on to fostering parent and child groups, is that right? Yes. 

00:13:01 Amalia 

Yes, that's my that's that's my favourite thing to do. 

00:13:05 Helen 

So tell us about that then. 

00:13:07 Amalia 

Right, that is, it used to be called mum and baby. And then it was considered that was. 

00:13:13 Amalia 

Very wrong to say that because it's not always mum and baby. I mean, I've had. I've had mum. I'm babies. I've had mums and children that are no longer babies and I've had mom, dad, child and baby, you know, I had a placement with four people. It's all about trying to give people. 

00:13:17 

Yeah. 

00:13:33 Amalia 

He. 

00:13:35 Amalia 

A chance? 

00:13:37 Amalia 

To keep their families together. Yeah. And to me, there is nothing more important. 

00:13:43 Amalia 

Then a family staying together because I I honestly believe that every time a child. 

00:13:50 Amalia 

Has to be taken away from their parents. 

00:13:54 Amalia 

That is a tragedy. 

00:13:56 Amalia 

And we can do in a. Sometimes there is no choice, obviously and and I'm not saying that children should. I'm not saying children should not be taken away from parents. Sometimes there is no choice, but on the whole, if there is anything you can do to stop that, to to, to keep families together, that is the best for the child and for the parents. 

00:14:17 Amalia 

So. 

00:14:18 Amalia 

With parent and child you were there at that moment where there is a danger that those children we will will be removed from their parents. 

00:14:27 Amalia 

And you're there to try to help them become better parents. 

00:14:33 Amalia 

And to me that is the nicest and best thing you can do. The most rewarding. 

00:14:39 Amalia 

Because with with the other fostering you're you're almost at the aftermath. The bad things have already happened. The chances have not. 

00:14:49 Amalia 

Been given or been taken, and you're basically dealing with what? 

00:14:54 Amalia 

Already happening children happening little from parents. You have to find you know, nurturing environment for them to try. 

00:15:00 Amalia 

To. 

00:15:01 Amalia 

To make them be happy and grow, but with parent and child, you're there at the beginning. 

00:15:07 Amalia 

You're there and you wanna stop it and touch wood? I've only lost one. 

00:15:13 Amalia 

There was only one case where they have not kept their children. All the other ones have got their children. I still get messages from them saying photos with the children. How well they're doing and how you know. And to me that is. 

00:15:28 Helen 

Amazing. Priceless. Absolutely priceless. Yeah. So at what point in your in your 10 year journey so far? Amelia, did you start doing this type of fostering? 

00:15:39 Amalia 

Right. What? What? What happened was is I had a I had a child that was placed with me while I had the other boy, the one that I struggled to to hold on to and then let go. And and he was a very complex case. That's when we did. 

00:15:59 Amalia 

Or the therapeutic fostering. 

00:16:03 Amalia 

To be able to cope with with him, he had a lot of high needs, so much so that he was decided that he couldn't be placed with any other children, so he was either we kept him as a solo placeman or he had to go to some kind of. 

00:16:21 Amalia 

You know, residential unit, I wasn't gonna letting go to any residential unit because, you know, he'd been with me for a while by then and we we stuck by him. But he couldn't be placed alongside any other children. 

00:16:33 Amalia 

Because he was just. 

00:16:35 Amalia 

It was dangerous for, you know, you have to take care. You have to say God, everybody. 

00:16:40 Amalia 

UM. 

00:16:42 Amalia 

So for a while I thought. 

00:16:45 Amalia 

OK. 

00:16:46 Amalia 

I will try to impair the child alongside. 

00:16:52 Amalia 

Because of this, that would not be other children. That would be a completely different thing, and I did about two or three placements alongside. 

00:17:01 Amalia 

My boy. 

00:17:04 Amalia 

And that didn't work either, because he was jealous of the babies. But we tried anyway. While I did that, I realised that that was really my. 

00:17:14 Amalia 

You know my calling and what I wanted to do. Yeah, obviously I wasn't gonna. 

00:17:20 Amalia 

Let this this boy down, because that's not in our nature. You know, if you're doing something, you have to do it. So we waited till he was 18 and moved on. And then I decided to just do parent and child. 

00:17:35 Amalia 

And so that's been for about four or five years. 

00:17:37 Helen 

Now, yeah. And you, you talk about, you know, sometimes the situations can get quite difficult and quite challenging. Do you feel like you have adequate support, though? There's always someone to speak to or someone to help you? Yeah. 

00:17:49 Amalia 

Oh, good. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I've had, I mean, touch food. I've had very, very good. 

00:17:58 Amalia 

That social workers, my supervisor, social workers, they have always been there for me. I mean, I've never felt like I was on my own when I, when I've had, I'm not. I mean, that's good. I've not had that many bad times. We had a a, A, a, a really bad time at the time when when that boy was on his way out and he. But even then. 

00:18:18 Amalia 

My social worker was. 

00:18:20 Amalia 

You know, she was coming to see me a couple of times a week. I must say he had an A, a brilliant social worker, which is. 

00:18:27 Amalia 

Not always the. 

00:18:27 Amalia 

Case. But he did have his own social worker, was brilliant as well, and so we we had a good team put together. So yeah, that's not that's never been a problem. And we're quite strong people. 

00:18:40 Amalia 

Of myself and my husband, I mean, coming from a. 

00:18:44 Amalia 

Career in in in casinos? You you learn a lot about defusing situations and dealing with people which are not very happy and things like that. So you know you basically trans yes transferable skills. 

00:18:53 

Yeah. 

00:18:59 Helen 

Yeah, and. And that's the thing, Amelia. You know that there are so many transferable. 

00:19:04 Helen 

Skills that you can use in fostering aren't there. 

00:19:07 Amalia 

Solutely. Absolutely. And it's it's like anything, you know, sometimes different people will will behave differently in different placements. I mean the boy that we ended up taking all the way through his 18 when he came to me, he was like a last last. 

00:19:24 Amalia 

Chance alone. You know, he had. He had sabotaged couple of placement. The last place when he was in, they had to call the police on him because he was such a horrible person. And he had done this. And because some of the referrals are horrible. 

00:19:40 Amalia 

But that's not what the reality then is. I mean, sometimes when things are written down, they sound horrible. They sound like ohh God scary, but you need to meet the person to know whether you're going to be. 

00:19:53 Amalia 

Because he came here on weak clip like that and he was a little Angel for me most of the time he was. 

00:19:59 Amalia 

Horrible. 

00:19:59 Amalia 

To all people. 

00:20:02 Amalia 

But you love. 

00:20:02 Helen 

Me. But you developed a good friend and a good trust with him, yeah. 

00:20:06 Amalia 

Absolutely. I mean, he he could not do enough for me. He was like if there was. And this is another conversation. There was a level of over attachment linked to his own problems. But the point is if you had read, if you had gone on on his, you know, because when you when you looking for a place. 

00:20:26 Amalia 

And they send you this, this information to you would never have gone near that child. But the reality was living with him was no problem whatsoever. Not for me. 

00:20:37 Amalia 

Anyway. 

00:20:38 Amalia 

He he was actually much easier than than other people who did not come with a. 

00:20:43 Amalia 

Massive. 

00:20:44 Amalia 

And this has applied a few times as well. I mean, I've had some parent and child that have come with horrible like, you know, when you read the. 

00:20:51 Amalia 

Thing you know like. 

00:20:53 Amalia 

Convictions and these are not. But then you meet them and they are normal people and they're very nice people and people. You can have a very good rapport with. So don't be too scared by. 

00:21:06 Helen 

What you read in paper? Yeah, and have an open mind. Yeah, definitely an open mind is definitely needed, isn't it? And I want to talk about your birth children and Amelia, because you have two birth children, don't you? How how has it been with them? Were you obviously you said they were. They were older. They weren't young children. 

00:21:24 Amalia 

Yeah. Uh, when we started. Yeah, I I I've often reflected on that. I don't know how. 

00:21:26 Helen 

And you. 

00:21:33 Amalia 

It would have worked because I know some people foster while the children are quite young. He worked with the families and and. 

00:21:38 Helen 

Yeah. Yeah, it can, yeah. 

00:21:43 Amalia 

I I think it is. It's very difficult for me to reflect on that because it would have been a different experience cause I can't help thinking if I had forced with my children were younger. Chances are is I would have been given younger children to foster, cause the matching system works like that. But because my boys were older, I've only ever foster teenagers. I mean the youngest. 

00:22:04 Amalia 

The youngest child was was the the last one, the one that ended up as a solo placement and and he was 12, going on 13 by the time he. 

00:22:15 Amalia 

Name all the other ones have been older, so I don't know how it would have fitted, so I can't really talk about something I haven't experienced. From my experience, my boys were already in secondary school and. 

00:22:29 Amalia 

I'd love to say they were best friends and they got together. That was not my experience. They kept themselves themselves and they forced the children. There was never any problems. There was never any arguments or or anything at all between them, but they were never that close either. That could be. 

00:22:49 Amalia 

To do with their own personalities, teenage boys can be quite hard. You know all of them, you know, including mine. My eldest is Asperger's as well, so he's not that gregarious anyway. And and they they were. 

00:23:09 Amalia 

Both obviously doing the GCSE's and then the rail levels and then they. 

00:23:13 Amalia 

Went to uni so. 

00:23:16 Amalia 

There's never been any issues, but there's never been that much. We did go on holidays together and everything and we always got on really well because I I took my my foster children everywhere with me. 

00:23:26 Helen 

Do you think though that it's had a positive effect on your birth children's sort of general outlook on life though, yeah. 

00:23:33 Amalia 

Oh, absolutely, 100 percent 100%. I mean, in fact, both of them mentioned. 

00:23:39 Amalia 

The fostering experience on the university introduction letter because I think is is, is something that has has changed them as people. I think it makes you realise that life can be very complicated and at the same time. 

00:23:55 Amalia 

Is not. 

00:23:57 Amalia 

Because people are people, regardless of of of where they come from, and you have to treat every person at face value at who they are and what they do not. What you cannot be prejudice. You cannot have preconceived ideas of what people are. 

00:24:14 Amalia 

So definitely make them more open minded. 

00:24:17 Helen 

Yeah. And Amelia, you know, you've had such a a, a rich journey, really, haven't you? In the last 10 years, there's been ups and downs. There's been challenges. There's been, you know, amazing moments as well. Why would you say you continue to do it? What what makes you keep on fostering? 

00:24:38 Amalia 

I I I like. I like having people in my life. I like being busy. I I get very. 

00:24:48 Amalia 

Not bored. Bored is the wrong idea. I feel like restless when I don't have something, and I find, especially with the parent and Charles, you got such an involvement with it. 

00:24:58 Amalia 

That it it's sort of like gives another dimension to your life. 

00:25:03 Amalia 

You know you you feel like you're doing something and you're doing something that's that's worthwhile. All of babies as well. And yes, I'm the baby in the. 

00:25:10 Helen 

Yeah. 

00:25:12 Amalia 

House because it's like. 

00:25:12 Helen 

And you get, you get to have lots of babies in your house, yeah. 

00:25:15 Amalia 

And you see, and often you see them right from birth, and you then see them growing up. So it's like having extra extra family, I don't know. 

00:25:26 

We, we. 

00:25:29 Amalia 

After an hour, to be honest, why we carry on, we carry on because that's. 

00:25:32 Amalia 

What we do? 

00:25:34 Amalia 

At some point, we'll have to stop. 

00:25:36 Helen 

I suppose not for a long time. Yeah, so. But what? What do you get from it? What? How does it make you feel? 

00:25:43 Amalia 

It makes you feel like you're doing something worthwhile. Yeah. Makes you feel like what you do makes a difference, which I think is important for people to feel. 

00:25:52 Amalia 

That what they do is important and and matters. 

00:25:56 Amalia 

UM. 

00:25:58 Amalia 

I I just like it. I like you know, I I. 

00:26:02 Amalia 

I get as I. 

00:26:02 Amalia 

Say I get very involved with them and I. 

00:26:05 Amalia 

And. 

00:26:06 Amalia 

So to give you something otherwise this can be very long. 

00:26:10 Helen 

And Amelia going back 10 years, you know, you said at the start of our chat that you started fostering because your husband saw an advert, which is amazing. Yeah. 

00:26:18 

Well, it was. 

00:26:18 Amalia 

Walking. Yeah, there was a big banner outside the office. They used to have an office in Chatham then. 

00:26:25 Helen 

And now, 10 years later, as we scroll through our Facebook feeds or our Instagram feeds, somebody might come across this video and you know, I've never thought about fostering before. What? What would she say to that person? 

00:26:25 Amalia 

Would you have? 

00:26:38 Amalia 

If you are, if you think it's something you can do, definitely go and find out. It may come to nothing. You know, once, once you find out what it is, it may not be for you, but don't be thinking it may or may not be. 

00:26:52 Amalia 

Because chances are it will be, it will be good for you. I actually find on the years while my boys were at secondary, doing fostering was actually very beneficial for me as well because it meant I was at home. 

00:27:05 Amalia 

Taking care of my foster children and my. 

00:27:08 Amalia 

On children at the same time, because when you go to work normally, you're out of the house for 8 or 9 hours a day. By the time you do your commute and back this way, you're still in the house and you're doing a worthwhile job. 

00:27:21 Amalia 

But at the same time, you can take care of your own home and your own family, and that's amazing. 

00:27:26 Amalia 

Thing. 

00:27:27 Amalia 

You know it's it's it's there's not many jobs that give you that cause. Even when people say I'm working from home. If you're working, you're working. You're not with your children. With this you can be doing work. Cause when when my children were when my foster children were doing their homework, my children were doing their homework so I could be there for all of them. 

00:27:44 Amalia 

So. 

00:27:46 Amalia 

There's not many jobs that are proper jobs where you can actually do that. So if you have a family yourself, it's it's the perfect situation. 

00:27:57 Amalia 

That's how I mean. 

00:28:00 Amalia 

Now that I don't have my own children, or because my children are grown up now. 

00:28:04 Amalia 

I do it for a different reason. I do it to have people around because otherwise I'm not because I miss having all the people around and by having the parent and child you have lots of people around you and you know you can be with them and it's like having an extra family. 

00:28:20 Amalia 

Having guests come to stay. 

00:28:22 Amalia 

And they bring a baby with them. 

00:28:26 Helen 

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for speaking to us today. Amelia. It's been amazing to hear your story and I'm sure it will inspire so many people to to maybe, you know, make that contact and and start their journey as well. So thank you so much, Amelia. 

00:28:28 Amalia 

You're welcome. 

00:28:42 Amalia 

You're welcome. It's lovely. Thank you. Bye bye. 

00:28:46 Helen 

Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Voices or Fostering. If you'd like to get involved in the conversation, we would love to hear your questions. 

00:28:56 Helen 

Maybe there's something you'd really like to ask about fostering. Get in touch. You can e-mail us on podcast@nfa.co.uk.